A Memorial weekend declaration of independence

A Memorial weekend declaration of independence

“Our
natural, inalienable rights now are considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has
never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as this moment.”

That was
Ronald Reagan, decades ago. But his evergreen message is particularly apropos
in this climate of using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to ride
roughshod over our basic freedoms.

Our
“leaders” in Pennsylvania, with little or no legislative deliberations, have
dangled supposed “safety” as they have conscripted our fundamental liberties. Never
mind that, as Benjamin Franklin so famously put it, “Those who would give
up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety.”

Those same
“leaders” have arbitrarily picked winners and losers, choosing what businesses
might survive – government-deemed “essential” — and what “non-essential” businesses
are to be left to rot on government-wilted vines.

However, you
can be sure that government will be quite quick to demand tax payments and raise
imposts on the “non-essentials” they stamped with this scarlet “N-E.” If
they can survive, that is.

Of course, when
called out, the government hides behind the same opaqueness in which the nuts
and bolts of its decision-making occurred.

At the same
time, the self-anointed new monarchs of government
threaten to use the power of “The State” to crush dissenters – those rising
numbers who would have the temerity and audacity to re-open their businesses to
feed themselves and their families, refusing to allow their government to
tighten the yoke of dependence around their necks like a hangman’s noose.

And for this,
such patriots of self-sufficiency and independence, those despised “rugged
individualists” who seek to be beholden to only their personal industry, have
been called “cowardly” by a governor whose constant message has been one of bumfuzzlement
and non sequiturs.

Those we
solemnly remember this Memorial Day weekend gave their last full measure for
the very freedom and liberties that government now has, by fiat, severely truncated
and openly traduced. By proxy, our heroes of liberty are mocked in their
graves.

Their
sacrifices deserve better. We deserve better. Sound public policy demands
better and that those under the people’s charge listen – or be prepared to be
cast aside as the people re-grasp their natural and inalienable rights.

Independence
Day must come early this year. We say it comes today.

More
notes on “The State” of things:

Gov. Tom
Wolf criticized
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for allowing a barber friend
to give him a haircut and a shave.

Barber shops
and hair salons remain closed by government order because of coronavirus.
(Hundreds are said to be joining forces to reopen on June 1 and take on “The
State.”) Roethlisberger grew out his
hair and beard, vowing not to tidy up until he felt he was once again throwing
NFL-caliber passes following arm surgery.

But the
barber’s attorney fought back, noting his client’s shop remains closed to the
public, he and Roethlisberger are friends and that no money exchanged hands.

How sad that
the barber, likely fearing a license-revocation directive from a
hissy-fit-throwing governor not knowing all the facts, had to secure the
service of an attorney to defend against such state-directed arbitrary and
capricious behavior.

But that’s
the sad climate in which we now live.

KDKA
Radio reports that the
City of Pittsburgh is considering a plan that would close full blocks of
streets in Shadyside, Lawrenceville, the South Side and the Golden Triangle to
allow restaurants to reopen this summer to serve socially distanced customers
in those streets.

The idea is
to allow the program as the city remains in the “yellow” phase of reopening
from the coronavirus pandemic. The better idea would be to allow those
restaurants to open in-house dining and take the safety precautions they know
will justify their reopening.

As
altruistic as such a street-closure program might sound, there must be a major
caution attached to it. For around the country, “progressives” have been
talking about permanently closing streets or heavily reducing
traffic on streets and roads whose use has been reduced and/or restricted
during the pandemic.

For
“progressives,” there’s nothing quite like using a crisis to engage in social
re-engineering. Whether Pittsburgh’s self-described “progressive” mayor Bill
Peduto can resist the temptation to follow suit remains doubtful.

Colin
McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute
for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).